Thursday, June 14, 2012

Beginnings and Endings

It’s the end of my old blog, Diary of a Sports Addict, and the beginning of my new blog, One Dollar Guns, where I will continue the emphasis on sports while adding more outside influence, and let my readers a little deeper into my scattered mind (beware).

The beginning and ending of a movie are the most important parts. A great beginning can buy your interest for a long time and a bad ending can make even the best stories seem pointless. Over the last few days we’ve seen some intriguing beginnings and some interesting endings. We’ve also seen a few beginnings of endings that could eventually become even more interesting (make sense?).

Celtic Died 

On Saturday night, the Celtics run as an Eastern Conference powerhouse under Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen likely came to an end when they lost to the Heat in game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals. The series between Boston and Miami was an epic back and forth battle from game one. When the Heat won the first two games, it was looking like a short series, but Boston struck back with amazing play from Rajon Rondo along with everything left in the tank from Pierce, Allen and Garnett, taking a 3-2 lead back to Boston.

But just when it was looking like the old timers (and Rondo) were making one more run at a ring, LeBron James turned on the afterburners and had one of the best games of his career, dominating the Celtics single-handedly in game six. The Heat then took care of business in game seven, soaring into the Finals for the second straight year in what many people think is the beginning of a multi-championship run. The only problem is the team they ran into has similar goals in mind and possibly an even brighter future ahead (more on that later). 

Misjudged Manny

Immediately following the end of the Eastern Conference Finals was the end of Manny Pacquiao’s seven year unbeaten streak in quite possibly the worst decision in boxing history (besides maybe the decision of paying $65 for a pay-per-view fight).

Pacquiao had his way with Timothy Bradley for 12 rounds, doing everything except knock his opponent out, but the judges somehow scored the fight in favor of Bradley. I can’t take any credit away from Bradley. He fought hard and never ran. Although that may been due to the strained and pulled ligaments in both feet he suffered in early rounds…

But Manny Pacquiao clearly won the fight, and any chimp with half a brain and one eye could tell you that. But it seems the WBO hired three chimps with no brains and no eyes to judge this fight and just like boxing always does, they found a way to screw it up. 

Many boxing fans (or at least all four of us) fear that the hope of a Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight is fading away. Mayweather is in the early stages of an 87-day jail sentence for attacking his ex-girlfriend in front of their children (class act), and apparently his incredible fitness is already deteriorating.

Meanwhile, Manny just lost (technically), for the first time since 2005. Pacquiao is 33 and Mayweather is 35. These young men are becoming old men and starting to seem a lot less invincible than they did a few years ago. My confidence in this fight happening has gone from about 75%-20% over the last year. My interest has gone from 100%-50% at best. Unfortunately, it’s hard to imagine anything saving the sad state of a sport that once played a proud, significant role in American culture and history.

Mad End

On Sunday, another great season of Mad Men came to an end, leaving the audience hanging as to whether the recently monogamous advertising guru, Don Draper, would start respecting his wife and her new career path, or go back to his old scandalous ways.

After four great seasons, one could assume the writers and producers of Mad Men would start running out of ideas. But Sterling Cooper Draper Price came back stronger than ever with a dark, heavy fifth season full of alcoholism, fist fights, suicide, and plenty of good old-fashion sexism and adultery (if you’re in to that sort of thing).

There are few criticisms to dish out to Mad Men. It is the most flawless show on TV, never leaving you rolling your eyes at the over the top plotlines and corny, snappy dialogue that many shows force down our throats. Some people will say the show is too sexist, but I think it is accurately depicting a sexist group of people in a sexist era. Criticizing Mad Men for being sexist is like criticizing Roots for being racist.

King’s Cup

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the reference, King’s Cup is a game played in college that involves a deck of cards, a giant bowl full of beer and a lot of vomiting.

Back to sports; on Monday night, the NHL season came to an end when the Kings took out the Devils in six games in front of a rowdy home crowd at the Staples Center to win their first ever Stanley Cup. The Kings snuck into the playoffs as an eight-seed, then quickly turned into the favorite to win it all after they dominated the Canucks and Blues in the first two rounds.

The Kings went up 3-0 in every series, but the finals got a little dicey when the Devils won games four and five turning it into a competitive series. But in game six in Los Angeles the Kings looked dominate again, crushing the Devils 6-1 behind great all-around play by Dustin Brown and shutdown goaltending by Jonathan Quick, the two guys that carried them all throughout the playoffs.

It was nice to see a champion other than the Lakers at Staples for once. The Kings are young, tough, confident, and they have the best goalie in the game. All this talent finally started to come together when the playoffs began. This was the first Stanley Cup in Kings history, but the second could be close behind… As a lifelong Red Wings fan living in L.A., it really pains me to say that…

The Beginning of the End

The NBA Finals began Tuesday night, and the Beginning of the Beginning would be a more accurate title, since this could be the first of several times the Heat and Thunder meet in an intense weather related battle for a title. Miami found themselves outmatched against a younger, faster, deeper, hungrier Oklahoma City squad that had home court on their side in the loudest stadium in basketball.

It started well for the Heat, who got on the massive shoulders of LeBron James and took a 13-point lead in the first half. But the Thunder went on one of their patented second half runs, looking like the nearly unbeatable team they’ve been throughout the playoffs and won the game 105-94 with an incredible performance by Kevin Durant.

I’ve been picking the Thunder to win it all since before the season started.  Some people seem to interpret that as disrespecting LeBron James and Dwayne Wade or misunderstanding the magnitude of the two of them playing with Chris Bosh. But just like the blind, brainless chimps that judged the Pacquiao fight, those people are wrong.

It doesn’t come down to LeBron vs. Durant or Wade vs. Westbrook. The Thunder are simply the better basketball team. They have much better role players and guys who can affect the game without scoring like Kendrick Perkins, Serge Ibaka and Thabo Sefolosha. On top of that, their pieces just seem fit together better. 

Now before all of the Thunder-pickers out there get carried away (myself included), we must remember, they’ve only won one game. One game is all it takes to change everything you think about an NBA playoff series. If the Heat win game two, they’ll be heading back to Miami with all the momentum on their side. And just like this series, this is only the beginning for two great young teams that could face each other in the finals many more times. 

The great thing about basketball as opposed to boxing is the best opponents actually have to face each other, and the points are scored when the players put the ball in the basket, not when blind brainless chimps write a random number on a card. Now that’s what I call a great ending!